Linh Cinder
Cinder is the heroine of the Lunar Chronicles. She is the narrator of the first book in the series and also the one who drives the main plotline. Biography Background Linh Cinder was thought to have been born on November 29, 109 T.E. However, after learning she is really Princess Selene, her actual birthday was discovered to be December 21, 109 T.E. Linh Cinder was Queen Channary's only daughter and child, also Queen Levana's niece, and was therefore the only true heir to the Lunar throne. When Cinder was three years old, she was thought to be killed by a nursery fire that was most likely started by Queen Levana in order to claim the crown for herself. However, without concrete evidence, no one could prove Levana's attempted murder. The remnants of a leg and hand led people to believe that Princess Selene had died, but many people speculated that Selene was still alive and hiding on Earth. After the fire, Dr. Logan Tanner enlisted the help of Michelle Benoit to smuggle the barely-alive Selene to Earth. There, he operated extensively on Selene in order to save her from the wounds she had sustained. An underground operating room underneath Michelle's farm held Selene in a suspended animation tank for eight years in order to keep her alive but unconscious. She was then given to the care of Linh Garan, who adopted her as Linh Cinder and took her to the Eastern Commonwealth to live with him, despite his wife Adri refusing to accept the girl into their family. A few weeks after adopting Cinder, Garan died from the plague letumosis. Thereafter, Adri became Linh Cinder's new guardian and often mistreated her, believing that she was the cause of Garan's death—which is partially, yet unintentionally, true, because Lunars were the ones who carried the plague to Earth. History For much of her childhood, Linh Cinder was a girl who had no memory prior to a supposed "hover car accident," in which she had lost her parents as well as her leg and hand. She became a cyborg and was adopted by Linh Garan, although his wife didn't support the decision. After being adopted by the Linh family at the age of eleven, Garan soon passed away, only days after her arrival from the plague letumosis. Linh Cinder befriended Peony, Garan and Adri's youngest daughter and Pearl's sister, along with the family's android, Iko. Eventually Linh Cinder adapted to her surroundings and became aware of the people that disliked her due to her being cyborg. Linh Cinder set up a booth in the marketplace in New Beijing Market and worked as a mechanic in order to repay her debt to Adri. While she was working one day, Cinder met Prince Kai, who asked her to fix his android Nainsi. After Kai left, the market was evacuated due to a baker in the marketplace, Chang Sacha, showing signs of the plague. Later on, while in the junkyard, Linh Cinder, Iko, and Peony were looking for a new magbelt for Adri's hover car. They then discovered an old-fashioned, gas-powered car, which Linh Cinder planned to take home and repair it in order to get to Europe and out of Adri's ward. At the same time, Linh Cinder found symptoms of the plague on Peony and she was promptly taken away by med-droids to a quarantine. When Linh Cinder returned home, Adri was grieving over the loss of Peony and infuriated at Linh Cinder, blaming the cause of her daughter's sickness on Linh Cinder. Even though she was confirmed by the med-droids that she did not contract the plague, Linh Cinder believed that she must have passed the plague from Chang Sacha, the market baker taken to the quarantines earlier that day, to Peony. Adri had Linh Cinder taken away to the palace to be used for letumosis research against Linh Cinder's will. Linh Cinder tried to resist, taking out two med-droids in the process, but was tasered by a third droid and taken in unconscious. Dr. Erland, a researcher in the palace, drew blood from Linh Cinder, and when she woke up, he opened up her control panel and scanned her, revealing that she was 36.28% cyborg, 36.28% not human. The doctor injected her with tagged letumosis pathogens and waited for them to take effect so he could give her a test antidote. After several minutes, however, Linh Cinder's immune system kicked in and the pathogens disappeared. Finding her uniquely different from the other cyborgs, Dr. Erland drew another blood sample and immediately moved her to another lab. He then confronted her to speak to her in person, instead of over an intercom like before, but Linh Cinder tried to attack him with a wrench hidden in her metal calf. However, using his Lunar gift, the doctor made Linh Cinder feel tired and safe, and he persuaded her not to attack him. Dr. Erland told her that she's actually immune to the plague and he questioned her about her childhood. Linh Cinder told him that when she was eleven, she was told she was in a hover car crash that killed her parents, and was given a control panel, a metal hand, and a metal foot to replace the limbs she had lost. Linh Cinder also mentioned that she did not remember anything before her surgery and was taken to the Eastern Commonwealth by Linh Garan, her former guardian. Characteristics Features Linh Cinder has a slight build, tanned skin, and straight brown hair, slightly below her shoulders, which is usually worn in a tight ponytail. It is mentioned numerous times in the series that Linh Cinder's figure is too angular and too boyish (slightly curved mentioned by Marissa Meyer in her blog ). Her left hand and leg are made of metal, as well as four ribs, her vertebrae, silicon and biotissue around her heart, a control panel at the base of her skull, and metal splints along the bones in her right leg. Until it was disabled by Dr. Erland, she had a small chip that suppressed her Lunar gift that was installed in her spine. It was created by her stepfather, Linh Garan, before he succumbed to the plague letumosis. Personality She's stubborn, but tenacious as well. Cinder is also part tomboy, she doesn't like to wear dresses. She only wore it in the Commonwealth ball. But Cinder, although tough, has a soft side. When someone gets hurt or something happens to them she gets tense and concerned. But Cinder is one of the toughest characters, she is a Lunar, and a runaway fugitive. Cinder is super smart, she broke out of jail, and figured out where Doctor Erland was. Cinder is a pretty good character! Trivia *Linh Cinder's name comes from the original Cinderella fairy tale, in which Cinderella would often arise covered in cinders. *Just like the original Cinderella, Cinder is almost always covered in dirt. *Author Marissa Meyer may have chosen a fire to be the reason for Linh Cinder's injuries because in the original fairy tale, Cinderella had to pick lentils from a pile of ashes in order to go to the ball. *Linh Cinder is ambidextrous. * In Greek mythology, Selene is the titan goddess of the moon, her Roman counterpart is Luna. Category:A to Z Category:Characters Category:Females Category:Cyborgs Category:Lunars Category:Alive Category:Main characters Category:Viewpoint characters Category:Characters in Glitches Category:Characters in Cinder Category:Characters in Scarlet Category:Characters in The Little Android Category:Characters in Cress Category:Characters in Winter Category:Fairest Category:Romance